The Trials
by Takira
Summary: I suppose you could call this a sequel to The Room...more of a counterpoint. After all, there are two sides to any issue...


The Trials

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I keep reminding myself that this is for the good of the world: both our worlds. If I get out of this debacle alive, then perhaps not so much is lost as I had feared. Of course, that's contingent on survival of the training _before_ the trial. I can't say whether or not I expected this sort of drive from him; honestly, I'm not sure what I expected of him at all. Preconceived notions are horribly unfair, particularly when I try to recall where I acquired them. If I could remember a single overwhelmingly positive comment I'd heard about him, I could rest safe in the knowledge that I had been lead astray, that I wasn't at fault for being so wrong about him.

The longer I think on it, though, the less I find. He was strong, he was proud, those I can remember hearing; I do not deny that the man with whom I now train is strong and proud. I just wish they had told me the rest about him...the coldness, the calculated anger, the temper that could set you quivering and then tear you apart for doing so. Gods, weakness. Never have I felt so weak as when I am with him.

Every day we push harder, regardless of yesterday's success or failure. Preparedness is a concept foreign to him; after all, you will only feel weary if you are weak and you deserve it. For a man who claims to understand his body so well (as a weapon, he tells me, purely as a weapon) he abuses it terribly. I've been trying to figure out if that is part of the training, too, a way to build the pain threshold by inflicting it upon oneself. I made the mistake of asking him and received for my trouble that look of his I'm beginning to see in my dreams: not even a sneer, just...disgusted disappointment. I dare not take issue with it. Blood may be thicker than water, but as he is convinced that the latter runs through my veins, I have no guarantee that he wouldn't kill me.

Thus, I hold my silence and take blow after blow from him. Were I in better spirits I might find it ironic that our training always seems to end as my fights with the androids did: usually I regain consciousness in time to see him turn his back and stalk off to train by himself. I wonder if he'll eventually dispense with all pretence and just knock me out from the start; obviously I'm interfering with his real training. Why he even bothers with me is not evident, but I have long since ceased to try and understand him. I understand enough. I do not wish to know more; it would only bring more pain, and weakling that I am, I wish no further pain from him.

It's my fault, of course; I should have been prepared for this. Mother even warned me not to expect too much from him, but somehow I'd thought that any man worthy of her had to have some redeeming qualities. I don't know what he did to win her favor, but it must have been either very good or very underhanded. I may ask her about that when I get home. If he's harmed her, he will have more to answer for than his attitude...

He has yet to ask after mother, and he knows she is alive; he merely doesn't care. Not a day goes by when she doesn't think of him (I know this) and he cannot spare a minute to ask after her health. I could tell him how she misses him. I could tell him how she grows thinner each year, spends less time laughing and more nights weeping silently when she thinks I have gone to bed and cannot see. I could tell him these things and more but for the fact that he simply doesn't care. She could die while I'm away, and I am the only person who would notice and mourn her.

I cannot tell her of him when I return, and I know she'll ask. I just don't want to see the expression on her face when I tear away at the sugared memories she held of him; they're her strength. She loved him; I'm not so blind that I can't see that. I am also not so blind that I can't see he never loved her. Not to say that he is incapable of love, though gods know he's given me no evidence to the contrary. I would prefer it, really, that it merely be outside his reach; I could forgive him then. The longer I watch him, however, the more certain I become that even were he capable, he would not love, not even his mate (I'm not foolish enough to ask him to love his child). It's hard to look up to a man like that. I can respect his strength and his skill, but the only things directing them are his will and his precious goddamned pride.

I want to hate him, sometimes. I wish that I could. People like him that feel nothing, that hurt things merely to prove their strength, they're like Jinzouningen and I can't be one of them. If this is what it means to be Saiyajin I want no part of it. Gohan was never like this. He stood against the androids and nearly won; my father was "truer" Saiyajin and he died. Yes, it hurts me to think that. I still have his death to avenge, along with Gohan's and all the others', but Gohan's death I shall repay out of love; Vegeta's I shall repay out of duty. He would have preferred it that way.

Papa, I can't join you. I'm not Saiyajin, I never was. Gohan knew what it meant to live between the worlds, he understood me in a way you cannot. You don't want to see what I am; I've been disappointment to you enough already. I can fight, I can train, I can learn...but from all indications I can't be the son you wanted and I'm sorry.

You expected more of me than I could ever truly be, Vegeta.

Perhaps I am guilty of the same.

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End file.
